thank you for believing in our work!
Our work depends on the generosity of foundations and donors like you. We believe that investing in our youth means investing in our communities and our world. Any support has a lasting effect on Free Verse and the youth population we serve.
Funders
Montana arts council & NationAl endowment for the arts
Free Verse is funded by a grant from the Artists in Schools and Communities (AISC) program from the Montana Arts Council, which will support us in bringing Year 4 of the I Am Montana Project to learning centers around Montana! The Montana Arts Council, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, strives to provide access to quality arts learning to develop the creative potential of Montanans of all ages. Towards that end, the AISC program provides matching funds that support a wide range of arts learning experiences and artist residencies for participants of all ages with professional working artists, as well as other special projects that support arts learning in schools and community settings.
Humanities Montana
Free Verse is funded by Humanity Montana’s SHARP Project Grants, which were made available to organizations that want to expand access to, redesign, or introduce humanities programming based on opportunities that arose or lessons that were learned during the pandemic. Free Verse is using the awarded funds to continue to offer the virtual model of classes that we developed and streamlined during the pandemic to facilities in locations like Pine Hills in Miles City, where distance would otherwise make it impossible to work with the kids on a regular basis, to the Ted Lechner Youth Services Center and JDC in Billings, both of which will continue to allow only virtual visitations for the foreseeable future, and to expand into new areas using the virtual method such as the Great Falls JDC. Free Verse thanks Humanities Montana for continuing to support us for a third year in these ongoing endeavors to connect with Montana's incarcerated youth near and far.
The Poetry Foundation
Free Verse is a recipient of the Poetry Foundation Emergency Grant program, which supports poetry and affiliated art organizations struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. This as an extension of their “Commitment to Our Community,” created in June 2020. Free Verse is thankful for their support this year.
The Llewellyn Foundation
Free Verse is funded in part by The Llewellyn Foundation, which funds initiatives that address the health, education and well-being of individuals, families and communities. We are thankful for their continued support over the years.
The Literary Arts Emergency Fund
Free Verse is thankful for funding from the Literary Arts Emergency Fund, which was established “in response to the lack of institutional support for the nonprofit organizations and presses that sustain literary culture in the U.S.,” and made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Literary Arts Emergency Fund was launched and administered in 2020 by the Academy of American Poets, the Community of Literary Magazine & Presses, and the National Book Foundation. It distributed $3.5 million in emergency funding to 282 nonprofit literary arts organizations, magazines, and publishers who have been severely financially affected by COVID-19.
Headwaters Foundation
Free Verse is thankful for funding of the GO! Grants from the Headwaters Foundation, who supports nonprofit organizations working in Western Montana’s most rural communities to promote healthy lives for children and families, with a special emphasis on civic participation, discrimination, incarceration, Indigenous traditional knowledge and culture. We are so thankful to be funded for Year 5 of the “I Am Montana” Project!
Community Partnerships
The Missoula Writing Collaborative
The Missoula Writing Collaborative (MWC) served as the fiscal sponsor of Free Verse from inception to 2022. Founded in 1994, the MWC teaches literary competence, critical thinking, cultural awareness and artistic joy through creative writing. The MWC places writers in school classrooms, after-school programs, youth homes and other venues to show young people the power of words and help them find their voices as writers.
Missoula Community Foundation
In 2021, the Missoula Community Foundation, which supported us with its first ever LoLA Grant, has become our fiscal sponsor for management of the Montana Arts Council AISC Grant. The mission of the Missoula Community Foundation is to enhance community vitality by inspiring community giving and strengthening nonprofits. We are so grateful and excited to have them lending us their support again in this new capacity.
the beat within: A publication of writing and art from the inside
The Beat Within is a national publication of writing and art by incarcerated youth. Free Verse has long held a membership the Beat Within which provides us with the opportunity to submit student work for publication and to provide students with regular copies of the journal in their classrooms.
St. Patrick’s Adolescent Psychiatric Unit
Since summer 2021, Free Verse has partnered with St. Patrick’s Adolescent Psychiatric Unit to work with kids ages 12 through 18 experiencing emotional crisis. We offer hourly in-person Free Verse workshops featuring poetry, spoken word, art, collage, videos and other healing activities. As of 2022, we’re excited to be funded for our once-a-week classes for the rest of the year by Montana Mental Trust Fund. Thank you for the support!
University of Montana - Davidson Honors College
Starting in Fall 2020, the Davidson Honors College began teaching excerpts from Volume 1 of “I Am Montana” in a course called Ways of Knowing. Lauren Collins, Teaching Assistant Professor and Asian Studies Program Faculty Director at the University of Colorado Boulder, former Postdoctoral Teaching, Research, and Mentoring Fellow at the University of Montana, said: “Reading the words and experiences of youth, incarcerated and free, contained in this publication shaped our classroom discussions in profound ways. The words of the young incarcerated were particularly powerful. For students unfamiliar with the lived experiences of incarceration of youth not far from their own ages, these raw and intimate works communicated the agency and perspectives of these young authors, altering and deepening the conversations we had in the classroom."
Two Quotes from Students
"My biggest takeaway after reading the Free Verse publications is that these kids aren’t just numbers we’re collecting. They’re people very near our age, people we could know, or could be, had we been on different paths."
"I think the biggest connection to the class I made involves the Free Verse Writing Project and their books. As I mentioned in class, it is one thing to hear about these youth that are incarcerated and seeing the numbers, and it is another thing to see what they are feeling and to some extent, feel that for yourself."
Young Poets Program: at the Center for Creative Writing at Montana State University Billings
From 2018-2022, the Free Verse Project partnered with the Young Poets Program to publish I Am Montana volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4. The Young Poets Program is a program of the Center for Creative Writing at Montana State University Billings, encourages students to express themselves through poetry.